It might still be in January, but mid-summer World Cup concerns take centre stage tomorrow on a day when five France '98 finalists are involved in friendlies. Curiously, however, even though teams such as hosts France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Spain and Tunisia will be in action, more attention is likely to be focussed a stadium rather than on any particular team or player.
The stadium in question is the brand new, futuristic Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Paris, which will be officially opened tomorrow night with a friendly between France and Spain. In five months time, of course, the Stade de France will not only host the opening game of France '98, between Brazil and Scotland, but will also feature eight other games, including one of the semifinals and the 1998 World Cup final itself.
Of the 10 France '98 venues, the 80,000-capacity Stade de France is the only one purpose-built for the event. At all the other venues - Lens, Lyons, St. Etienne, Marseilles, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes and the Parc des Princes, Paris - existing stadia have been renovated.
Given its lack of a track record and given a variety of potential problems - traffic jams, security concerns, a threatened public transport strike, possible demonstrations by the unemployed and even a potentially grassless pitch - the Stade de France's "first night" will be watched and analysed with a great deal of attention by the France '98 Organising Committee.
Tomorrow night's prestige friendly is already a sell-out, thus guaranteeing a thorough work-out not just for the host country's soccer team but also for the stadium itself. Built at a cost of $420 million, the new stadium is a marvel of state-of-the-art, concrete and glass architecture, complete with a floating roof which extends across the pitch itself.
Visibility on the top row of the stands, some 85 metres away from the pitch, is reportedly good - by mid-July, the fans will give a definitive judgement on that claim. Furthermore, the front rows of the stands are something of a moveable feast, situated just 15 yards away from the pitch but retractable in order to reveal an athletics track below. Furthermore, these moveable stands rest on an ingenious air cushion so as not to damage the athletics track.
If this innovation proves a success, it will at one swoop have resolved one of the classic problems of so many major European stadia i.e. the unhappy marriage between athletics and soccer venues which puts a running track between the fans and the soccer pitch. Soccer fans at such classic dual-purpose stadia as the Olympic Stadium in Rome, the Olympic Stadium in Munich or the Lenin Stadium in Moscow (to name but three obvious candidates), can find themselves up to 110 yards distant from the action.
While the fans who travel tomorrow night may be much impressed with the look of the new stadium, they may have real difficulty getting themselves to Saint Denis in the first place. Just seven kilometres from central Paris, the Stade de France can be reached by a variety of subway and suburban rail links. At normal times, getting to the Stade de France is a doddle. The problems attached to tomorrow night and, who knows, perhaps to this summer's competition, concern the threat of both strike action by public transport employees and of a demonstration outside the stadium by unemployed workers. Remember, in recent weeks we have seen some unusual sights in Paris, such as the invasion of a section of the French stock market by one such unemployed demonstration.
Nor, if recent reports are to believed, will the condition of the new stadium's pitch impress the soccer faithful. Despite having been grown in a special nursery for 14 months before being laid last September, the Stade de France pitch turned a patchy yellow at stages last autumn.
Environmentalists suggest that the heavily polluted sub-soil - the stadium is built on a former coal and gas works - has caused the damage. Stade de France consortium officials argue that the groundsmen were over-enthusiastic with the sand and mower.
As for the football tomorrow night, a potentially meaningless friendly could in fact prove highly revealing, at least as far as France are concerned. With two regular first choice strikers in Patrice Loko of Paris St Germain and Christophe Dugarry of Marseilles currently ruled out, French coach Aime Jacquet may give a first cap to the exciting Franco-Argentine 20-yearold David Trezeguet of Monaco.
Son of an Argentine footballer, who played for Rouen in the mid'70s, Trezeguet qualifies for France as he was born in the city, although he lived nearly all of his life in Buenos Aires.
Good on the ground and quick off the mark, Trezeguet has been in excellent form recently for Monaco, scoring a hat-trick in last weekend's 4-0 win over Montpelier.
Trezeguet may be the only French innovation in a strong looking side which should round up the usual suspects such as Laurent Blanc, Lilian Thuram and Marcel Desailly in defence, with Zinedine Zidane, Ibrahim Ba, Youri Djorkaeff and Patrick Vieira in midfield.
Visitors Spain are also unlikely to experiment much. Coach Javier Clemente has remained faithful to the players who qualified Spain for France '98. Familiar figures such as Miguel Nadal, Abelardo and Ferrer in defence, along, with Luis Enrique and Amor in midfield and Spain's boy wonder Raul in attack, are all likely to play tomorrow. Much attention may be focussed on the two front men for either side - Raul and Trezeguet -- but even more attention will be concentrated on the venue itself. France '98, here we come.
